Project Summary
Athena Care Homes are a family owned group, operating 7 award winning care homes in the East of England.
They selected Impact Media for the design and build of a new website, and ongoing Support & Maintenance.
Their old website was outdated, had a number of usability issues, and did not represent the quality of their upmarket homes.
We designed and developed a user friendly WordPress website, which properly showcases their award winning homes, and the specialist services on offer at each.
The website is easy to manage, scalable, and incorporates social proof; including their Care Quality Commission ratings.
Deliverables
- Discovery & Strategy Workshops
- High Fidelity UX Wireframes
- Page Layouts Designed
- Mobile & Desktop Viewports
- Bespoke WordPress Theme
- CQC & Carehome.co.uk Integrations
- Indeed Integration
- Google Maps API
- Analytics & Goal Tracking
- Ongoing Support & Maintenance
The Challenge
Athena came to us for a new website build, and for an ongoing Support & Maintenance plan.
Their old website was outdated, and didn’t really do justice to their exceptionally well rated care homes. They needed a new, modern design, which represented their credibility and their upmarket, high quality homes. This was essential to aid in their continued growth; attracting new private residents.
They were already happy with WordPress as their CMS, which their old website had been built on, but knew we could offer a WordPress experience that would be much easier to and use – frontend and backend wise.
We identified some usability issues in the early stages of the project, and so the new website needed to address these.
Key objectives:
- Scalable - a site which can grow with them without additional development
- Allow them to update and add content with ease
- Better reflect their high quality homes and services
- Showcase their 7 care homes, each with different offerings & speciality care
- Allow them to market their homes more effectively
- Built with SEO best practice at its foundations
- Simple job management for recruitment
- Help them better reach their target audience
Workshops, Content Mapping & Wireframes
The process began with a workshop to identify the website and stakeholder requirements.
From the findings of the workshop, we were able to wireframe the key page templates for desktop and mobile views, showing the client where important features would sit in relation to each other, and how user journeys would flow through the site.
Design System & Page Layouts
Once the client was happy with these, we moved on to the visual design, again, for both desktop and mobile, giving the client how their new responsive website would appear on different devices. The designs focused on showcasing Athena’s credibility, and their culture and personality.
We also mapped each configuration to an image (where available) so that users can view what their chosen item will look like in their chosen configuration.
Clear And Easy To Use Navigation
An important usability issue we had identified in the earlier phase of the project, was that their old site was tricky to navigate. This was a particular concern due to a portion of their target audience being less digitally savvy. To solve this, we created a sticky navigation with scroll and back to top functionality.
We also made use of FAQ sections, and a central FAQ page, to answer any common questions users may have.
Development Of A
Bespoke WordPress Theme
For every website we build, we create a bespoke theme (never using off-the-shelf themes). This improves usability, removes bloat, and ensures that the websites can be scaled and built around the business, strictly following the approved design visuals.
It also allows us to build in required functionality, reducing the number of plugins required and it ensures a completely unique website tailored specifically to the client.
Technology & Plugins
- Gravity Forms - to manage form data and personalisation
- Integrated with Care Quality Commission & Carehome.co.uk ratings and reviews
- Integrated with Indeed for easy management and advertisement of roles
- Google Maps API - for the contact page map feature
- Elementor - for easy on-brand page building for Athena's team
- Advanced Custom Fields - for custom post types
- Yoast - for ongoing SEO efforts
- Google Tag Manager - for ease of implementing tools and tracking
- Events Calendar Pro - to manage the Exhibitions section
Showcasing Their Homes
The ‘our homes’ main page dynamically pulls through key information on each care home, including location, types of specialist care available, the homes Carehome.co.uk rating, along with CTAs for booking a visit, and see more information. This page is set up to pull through any future homes Athena adds to their group.
The individual home pages provide the user with all of the important information they might need. The address and phone number are prominently displayed at the top of the page, along with CTAs to book a visit (an important Covid measure for arranging visits with residents using integration with a third-party booking tool) and to arrange a viewing for prospective residents.
These pages give information on the home selected, along with the specialist types of care available.
Each of these pages using integrations with the Care Quality Commission and Carehome.co.uk, pulls through their ratings, and reviews. Feature alongside these is a testimonial.
Each page clearly lists:
- Features, benefits and amenities in an easy to digest format
- A virtual tour of the home with a clear call to action to arrange a viewing
- Information on activities run by the home
- Information on the nutrition focused catering
- Information on the grounds and facilities
- A profile of the Home Manager is featured, including a photograph
Better Use Of Social Proof
Athena’s homes have very high ratings and they have received glowing testimonials. We wanted to make sure that these were featured more prominently, alongside greater information on each of the homes.
The various data capture points include:
- Brochure download automation
- Request a viewing form
- Newsletter opt-in
GDPR Compliant Data Capture For Marketing
The Athena team wanted to simplify their marketing process and be better able to track specific marketing metrics and goal conversions. So GDPR compliant data capture was a must. We integrated all forms with Mailchimp, to make things easier for the team, and ensure goal tracking was set up with Google Analytics and Tag Manager.
Clearer Call To Actions
Something else missing from their old site was clear CTAs. We made sure to use prominent CTAs and visible contact information throughout the site. Making Athena easy to contact was a priority.
Ease Of Use & Future Proofing
We created an easy backend experience for the Athena team to be able to modify and add new pages and content without the need for technical knowledge. As with all our builds, we also included a set of training videos, so that they could train their wider team or any new starters with ease.
Across all areas of the site, we made sure that it will be able to grow with Athena as a business.
Contact Us
Continuing the themes of easy contact and clear CTAs, the contact page has a simple form with drop down selectors for the home in question and the type of enquiry, along with important GDPR tick boxes.
We also used the Google Maps API to create a selector with each of the 5 homes, which displays each home’s position on the map, along with contact details.
